Ba'ath Party

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a socialist political party founded on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party advocated pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism, and it called for the unification of the Arab World into one secular state. It held power in both Iraq and Syria while some minor branches operated in other countries, and it was a powerful movement until its 1966 split between the Iraqi Regional Branch and the Syrian Regional Branch. Since then, the Ba'ath Party has been divided into two parties that both created dictators such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Assad in Syria, and the two countries remain enemies.